Category: money matters

By Cindy Teh, edited by Jackie Tan. Cindy is part of fundMyLife, the platform that connects financial planning questions to the right advisers.

Let’s face it. In this day and age, having a single source of income is no longer enough. After paying rent and bills, what else is left? Setting up multiple income streams is the smart thing to do, no matter how old you are. Here, fundMyLife would like to explore slightly different (may be weird but completely legal) ways of making a little extra cash on the side.

Does not involve walking dolls with hands for heads, we promise!

Once you actually start thinking this through, there are about a million ways to make money. You could clean somebody’s house, set up a stall at flea markets, work at Starbucks on weekends, walk someone’s dog, drive Uber/Grab…the list goes on. So, we’ve decided to only focus on things you could do from home, as long as you have an internet connection. We’ve also ranked this list in terms of conventionality; from the obvious, to the you-can’t-be-serious (we are!).

Without further ado, fML presents…

#1 Freelancing

Sell any skills you have online. Graphic designer? Provide design services. Fast typist? Do data entry. Good at organising things? Become a virtual assistant.

But that’s obvious, right?

Well, you could also be a Date Concierge and help busy couples plan romantic dream dates. Or a Calligrapher, if you have sweet handwriting skills. How about working as a Baby Name Consultant? (fyi, the baby names consulting business mentioned in link has closed down. More customers for you, I guess!)

Side note, “Lucifer” is a banned baby name in New Zealand. And Sweden doesn’t allow kids to be named “Superman”.

Freelancing means you could work from home.

#2 Writing

This is such a BROAD industry that it deserves its own point. You can write for corporate companies, social media, blogs, or help university students with essays/assignments…

OR you could write love/breakup letters, poetry, and ahem, adult content (read: sex). The possibilities are endless. You could write about topics YOU know a lot about, like food, gaming, TV series, shopping, fishing… Or you could write How-To guides e.g. How To Fake MC / How To Cook Chicken Rice / How To Lose Weight / How To Tie A Tie… You could also write product reviews for products you’ve bought, or fake reviews (note: this is ILLEGAL most of the time).

Today I’m gonna write about how much I LOVE BANANAS!

#3 Online teaching

Tutor people in any subject you’re good at, from Algebra to HTML to the Piano. Work whenever you want. Impart knowledge. Empower humans. Save the world. Find a cure for cancer. Go to Mars. Woah…that escalated quickly. Okay, we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. Let’s go back to teaching online. Besides tutoring, you can also create courses for sites like Udemy, OpenLearning, and Teachable. You’ll need some technical skills so you could record yourself, or your computer screen, and edit the footage into short bite-sized videos for students.

The difference between online tutoring and creating courses online is that for tutoring – you only get paid when you’re teaching. So the money’s gonna stop if you take a break from tutoring. For online courses, you’ll have to invest quite a bit of time upfront in designing your course, filming it, and then promoting it. But you only have to do it once! Then sit back and collect the money as people start signing up for your class.

We’re sure you can charge more than that.

#4 Cryptocurrency

We get that this is a contentious topic. As with any kind of investment, there are always risks involved when you play with money. Make sure you do your research before sinking cash into anything, and always only spend what you can afford to lose. #commonsensefinancialadvice

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about the various ways you can make money from the hottest buzzword of the year. We’re not going to explore all of them, just the easiest methods. First of all, there are thousands of cryptocurrencies around. The most well-known ones are Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin.

The easiest way to make money with crypto is to buy and hold, aka long-term investment. You buy x amount of coins and hold it for months, years, however long you like, and cash out when you decide the returns are big enough.

Another method is to trade crypto, but you’ll need a certain level of knowledge and expertise in the market to make money. You also have to keep a constant eye on global crypto news/trends and what’s happening in the industry.

One more thing you could do is to take part in ICOs, which is like an IPO where companies sell their shares to the public. With ICOs, you buy coins at the offering stage, and sell them if/when their prices go up. You could also choose to invest in companies/products/technology you truly believe in and want to support, then reap the benefits when these companies become more established down the line. While a successful ICO could raise millions of dollars, ICOs are also known as the “wild west” of the crypto world. They are unregulated, which means scams and fraud could happen. There have been cases where ICO startups vanished after collecting money from investors, so make sure you do your homework before opening your wallet! [editor: do your own due diligence!]

Or win/lose all your crypto in a bet. We won’t judge.

#5 Sell your hair (seriously lol)

We’re not kidding. Ask Google! I’ll wait. Yup, now that you’re back from your search, let me tell you that the best wigs and hair extensions are made from real hair. Hair is also good for cleaning up oil spills, and erm, gardening. You do need to have long, healthy, unprocessed hair to make real money though. Someone sold their hair on this site for US$4,000…Looks like we’re all in the wrong line of business.

Rapunzel could have made so much money and shaved (pun) time off washing her hair in the mornings…

See, if you get a little creative, you could turn anything into a money-making machine. Start building your multiple streams of income, and look forward to retiring early! Or at least, go on a few new overseas adventures, and maybe have a couple more kids (the government didn’t pay us to say this). We hope that you’ve enjoyed reading and in the process, discover some ideas to help with your finances. Get inspired and go kick some ass, ladies and gentlemen!

fundMyLife is a platform that aims to empower Singaporeans to make financial decisions confidently. We also connect consumers to the right financial planners in a private and anonymous manner, based on their financial planning questions.

Follow us on our fundMyLife Facebook page to get exciting updates and your dose of finance knowledge! Alternatively, the Insurance Discussion SG Facebook group is a good place to discuss insurance-related topics with fellow Singaporeans.